Determined voters tackle the obstacles and triumph

MICHAEL MAYO COMMENTARY

When the precinct doors opened at the C.W. Thomas Recreation Center in Dania Beach at 7 a.m. Tuesday, Althea Wakeland was 160th in line.

Thirteen hours and three minutes later, she emerged from those doors triumphant.

"It's over," she said. "I'm so happy I got to cast my vote."

Her story is a small story.

But it tells the bigger one of a historic day.

Wakeland, 43, came early to precinct S004 to vote for Barack Obama.

She waited over an hour in the morning, but the line hardly moved. She had a job to work at Publix, so she left.

"I'll be back," she said. "I'll definitely vote later."

She got off work just past 6 p.m. By 6:30, she was back in line.

Her husband drove past and honked. Her two daughters, Aliyah, 11, and Patricia, 5, waved from the back seat.

"This is more about them than me," she said.

At 7 p.m., she was eighth from last when a poll worker placed an empty chair behind the final voter in line.

At 8:03 p.m., she finally got the sticker that read "My vote counted."

She wouldn't be deterred. She wouldn't be denied.

Neither would the other voters of precinct S004.

It's a predominantly black neighborhood, a place where the odds always seem stacked against success.

While other voting sites had multiple electronic voter ID check-in machines on Tuesday, there was only one here. It created an early morning bottleneck that never dissipated. There was only one optical scanning machine, and it broke down a couple times, including at the end.

Despite all the hurdles and obstacles, voters stuck it out.

"There was no give-up here," said Louis Hilliard, 51. "There was such a good fellowship, such a good attitude. Nobody quit."

Michael Curry didn't quit. At first he walked out angry, unable to vote after being told someone already voted under his name at an early voting site on Oct. 23. Then he realized the problem. It was his son, Michael Curry Jr., who voted early.

So he went back into the precinct, sorted out the mix-up, and he was allowed to vote.

Longtime residents said they'd never seen a turnout such as this.

"Usually you get in and out of here in five or 10 minutes," said Sharon Carroll, 49.

"I guess we're tired of suffering," said Harry James, 59, who arrived before 5 a.m. to be first in line. "People are mad. They want a change."

The line here didn't let up all day, some waiting up to three hours.

Across the street, Obama volunteers handed out free coffee and doughnuts in the morning, hot dogs and soda all afternoon.

"We didn't want anybody to leave because they were hungry," said Rosalind Curry. "We wanted to make sure nobody had any excuses to get off that line."

Toward the end of the long day, nursing student Venette Carry, 21, stood next to Wakeland.

"My first presidential election," Carry said. "It's worth the wait."

Wakeland came from Jamaica for a better life. She became a U.S. citizen in 2000, the same year Florida determined the presidency by 537 votes.

"I know how much even one vote can mean," she said. "That's why I came back."

Her husband, Patrick, became a U.S. citizen this year. It took him two hours to vote here Tuesday afternoon.

"I'm off tomorrow, so we're just going to watch the TV all night long," Althea Wakeland said. "We might make some noise."